Pickup orientation

I just recently bought a Air Norton 7 and Evolution 7 for my guitar. The orientation is what puzzles me. The Air Norton 7 neck pickup, if I put it in with the cable closest to to routing hole, will have the adjustable poll pieces closest to the bridge. Every picture I see shows adjustable poll pieces pointing to the neck if in the neck position. So my question is, do I put the AN7 in so that the adjustable poll pieces are towards the neck and the cable will be opposite of the hole and have to be wrapped around to feed into the hole or put it in with the cable lined up with the hole and adjustable poll pieces towards the bridge. Also I thought both of these pickups would come with a metal base, brass or other, like my old ones. These have a Circiut card like material as the base. Thanks for any help.

matter of taste, i install all my neck pups with the screw side toward the bridge.
i do this for one reason, when i coil tap the coil that stays on is closer to the neck for a warmer tone
some dimarzio's sound different when flipped around,steves special,mega drive, drop sonic.air nortons do not really change dramatically when turned around so like i said it is your call

Cool, thanks for the info. If I read this right, for coil tap, the nonadjustable poll piece coil is the one that stays on? Or can you select which coil stays tapped? Just asking questions. Thanks for the help..

Re: Pickup orientation

Quote:

Originally Posted by hittman7

The Air Norton 7 neck pickup, if I put it in with the cable closest to to routing hole, will have the adjustable poll pieces closest to the bridge. Every picture I see shows adjustable poll pieces pointing to the neck if in the neck position.

yep -- that's mostly from years of history making people think that looks best. when gibson designed the humbucker, and built those early ones with chrome covers and the screw pole pieces sticking through, they put the screw poles on the outer coils -- bridge humbucker screw poles closest to bridge, neck screw poles closest to neck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hittman7

So my question is, do I put the AN7 in so that the adjustable poll pieces are towards the neck and the cable will be opposite of the hole and have to be wrapped around to feed into the hole or put it in with the cable lined up with the hole and adjustable poll pieces towards the bridge.

you can do whatever you like. i always put the neck screw poles closest to the neck, because the other way looks 'backwards'. you do have to run the pickup cable all the way across the pickup cavity to the wiring hole. the orientation isn't a major factor for coil cutting, since you can make the wiring give either coil regardless of what orientation you install the pickup in -- most of my wiring schemes use both inner and outer coils in different combinations.

a more important thing to keep track of is the magnet polarities, since that will affect whether coil cut combinations hum canceling or not [and changing the wiring cannot overcome this]. on DiMarzio pickups that have two coils of different poles [screw and slug like the AN], used in the neck position, you want the screw poles closest to the neck to hum cancel in a JEM-style h/s/h pickup setup.

however, in a two humbucker setup like an RG2027 or 7620, the magnet needs to be rotated 180 degrees to have the right polarity. you can do this by installing the pickup 'backwards,' with the neck screw poles closest to the bridge, or if you want to keep the 'forwards' old gibson look with the screw poles closest to the neck, you will need to open up the pickup, pop out the bar magnet, rotate it 180 degrees, and put it back in. [be VERY CAREFUL if you try this on your own, and search this forum or repost/e-mail me for more details].

Quote:

Originally Posted by hittman7

Also I thought both of these pickups would come with a metal base, brass or other, like my old ones. These have a Circiut card like material as the base.

all the DiMarzio 7-string humbuckers have been that way for several years. they say it helps prevent the pickups going badly microphonic, which was a long-term problem with the old Blaze aka Blaze II pickups from the original UVs and 540S7s in the early 90s [which all had brass baseplates].